June 12, 2017

Dear members of the Hajim School community,

Sixteen students from other universities have joined us this summer to explore “Computational Methods for Understanding Music, Media, and Minds” and “Advancing Human Health, from Nano to Network” with eight University of Rochester students.

The students in these two new NSF-funded REUs (research experiences for undergraduates) are among 61 students — more than half of whom are Hajim School undergraduates — participating in an exciting summer research community organized through the Kearns Center.

The REU students, along with Hajim School Xerox Engineering Research Fellows and McNair Scholars, are sharing rooms, participating in seminars through the Kearns Center, and have even been divided into “houses” — à la Harry Potter —to compete against each other in various community-building events.

Our Xerox Research Fellows (and mentors) this summer are: Andrew Fianu and Meghan Patrick  (Douglas Kelley), Edna Toro Garza and Zhongdi Liu (Renato Perucchio), Muhammad Hadi (Niaz Abdolrahim), Yutong He (Ehsan Hoque), Liam Heeger and Seth Schaffer (Thomas Howard), Xiaojing Huang (Jannick Rolland), Mohamed Keita (Paul Funkenbusch), Ben King (Jiebo Luo), Jacob Kuebler and Diana Magana (Kenneth Marshall), John Lisi (Rick Waugh), Mohamed Salah Mahmoudi (Stephen McAleavey), Fiyinfoluwa Oluyinka (Roman Sobolewski), John Pirog (Geunyoung Yoon), Geoffrey Rouin (Diane Dalecki), Arfan Sewaket (Stephen Wu), Chinenye Tassie (Cristiano Tapparello), Yifei Yan (Danielle Benoit), and Weichen Yao (Robert Boyd).

Our Hajim School McNair Scholars (and mentors) are Kharimat Alatise (Danielle Benoit), Famous Clark (Ehsan Hoque), Dominique James (Diane Dalecki), Kim Sitthisack (Zhiyao Duan), Sabrina Villanueva (Andrew Berger), Javon Walker (Wendi Heinzelman), and Raymond Yu (Jaime Cardenas).

Hajim students (and mentors) Steven Broida (Thomas Howard), Amanda Forti (Regine Choe), Corrine Kennedy (Danielle Benoit), MIchael Reid (Mark Buckley), and Penelope Subervi (Stephen McAleavey) are participating in the Advancing Human Health REU, and Arlen Fan (Zhiyao Duan) in the Music, Media and Minds REU.

The visiting students participating in these REUs are Jake Altabef of RPI, Harleigh Awner of Carnegie Mellon, Haley Bertrand and Astha Singhal of Maryland, Moses Bug of Brandeis, Ricardo Cardoza of Maryland/Baltimore County, Ethan Cole and Graham Palmer of Michigan, Katelyn Curtis of Clarkson, Kyla Driver of RIT, Lauren Fowler of Mercer,  William Krizak of Mississippi State, Eunice Noel of Florida, Luis Riera of Rutgers, Andrew Smith of Central Florida, and Wesley Smith of Edinburgh (UK). Welcome to our campus!

Other Hajim faculty members mentoring REU students are Mitchell Anthamatten, Mark Bocko, Diane Dalecki, Daniel Gildea, Ehsan Hoque, Henry Kautz, Jiebo Luo, Stephen Roessner, and Chenliang Xu.

Thanks to the 30 Hajim School faculty members and their graduate students — and other students and faculty from across the University — who are participating.

This will be a fantastic opportunity for students to gain not only valuable research experience, but start preparing for graduate school, and develop professional and networking skills. I’m looking forward to seeing what they will come up with!

Have a great week!

Your dean,
Wendi Heinzelman